<p>operaluvr, i was speaking from (extremely) recent personal experience …
a more even balance than previously, perhaps; i wouldn’t really know, as i was there for only two years. however, it’s still a community in which a master’s candidate in strings who does not aspire to an orchestra job is something of an odd duck, and will find a relatively small pool of players with other ideas around. also, the requirement of four semesters of excerpt class sort of hammers in the institutional priority on orchestra.
this is not to say that it is not possible to have a wonderful experience at Rice as a string player with aspirations outside orchestra. that said, it is not really for everyone, and indeed was not right for me.</p>